-
Homeschooling
John Holt's book, Teach Your Own: A Hopeful Path for Education, adds momentum to the homeschooling movement. -
Board of Education Vs. Pico
U.S. Supreme court rules that books cannot be removed from a school library because school administrators deemed their content to be offensive. -
Wallace vs. Jaffree
U.S. Supreme Court finds that Alabama statutes authorizing silent prayer and teacher-led voluntary prayer in public schools violate the First Amendment. -
Online Campus
The University of Phoenix establishes their "online campus," the first to offer online bachelor's and master's degrees. It becomes the "largest private university in North America." -
IDEA
Public Law 101-476, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), renames and amends Public Law 94-142. In addition to changing terminology from handicap to disability, it mandates transition services and adds autism and traumatic brain injury to the eligibility list. -
Teach For America
Teach for America is formed, reestablishing the idea of a National Teachers Corps. -
Smart Board
The smart board is first introduced -
First Charter School
City Academy High School, the nation's first charter school, opens in St. Paul, Minnesota. -
Online Schooling
CompuHigh is founded. It claims to be the first online high school. -
White Boards
White boards begin to be used in almost all classrooms across America. The blackboard is becoming extinct -
Google
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up a workplace for their newly incorporated search engine in a Menlo Park, California garage. -
Columbine
On April 20th, two Columbine High School students go on a killing spree that leaves 15 dead and 23 wounded at the Littleton, Colorado school, making it the nations' deadliest school shooting incident. Though schools tighten safety procedures as a result of the Columbine massacre, school shootings continue to occur at an alarming rate. -
NCLB
The controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is approved by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002. The law, which reauthorizes the ESEA of 1965 and replaces the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, mandates high-stakes student testing, holds schools accountable for student achievement levels, and provides penalties for schools that do not make adequate yearly progress toward meeting the goals of NCLB. -
Layoffs
With the U.S. economy mired in the "great recession" and unemployment remaining high, states have massive budget deficits. As many as 300,000 teachers face layoffs. -
NCLB Changes?
President Barack Obama announces on February 9 that the applications of ten states seeking waivers from some of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law were approved. New Mexico's application is approved a few days later, bringing the number of states receiving waivers to 11. An additional 26 states applied for waivers in late February. -
Falling behind
The most recent results of the Program for International Student Assessment, released December 2, 2013, show that the achievement U.S. teenagers continues to lag behind that of their counterparts in other developed countries, particularly those from Asia.
